23 October 2011

Woolworths Mobile Data Scam



Another 'telco' consumer rip off, that curiously escapes the mass media's watchful eyes, and the silence from the Telecoms Ombudsman, allows this practice to still occur, this time in the hands of Woolworths.

The corporate giants of Australia, are working together to eventually form a monopoly in the retail industry, by taking over any competition, by firstly reducing prices of various goods and services, which the smaller businesses cannot compete with, then acquiring them, effectively taking over the market place.

This is part of the business plan, practiced by many of the large retail giants.

The corporate Goliath Big W / Woolworths / Safeway / Dicksmith, etc have teamed up with Optus to form a 'telco' brand, called woolworthsmobile.

Woolworths mobile are currently offering wireless broadband in $29 and $49 prepaid caps.

From their website:

http://www.woolworths.com.au/wps/wcm/connect/website/woolworths/about+us/woolworths-news/3gmobileprepaid

A $29 Recharge includes $500 worth of value which includes:
• $250 to any network (except Pivotel) and,
• $250 to any Optus or Woolworths Mobile within Australia
• 5GB of data
• 45 day expiry

What is not mentioned clearly to the customer is that :

1/. Data is counted in 10MB increments (Data fraud);
2/. Data is charged at $2 per Megabyte or $2,000 per gigabyte over the limit.

Virgin who is also an Optus MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) or reseller, charges and logs data per kilobyte of usage.

Another fraud supported in general by the business community, and the governing authority.

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